


Ransomed

by geekprincess26



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Drama, F/M, Knights and Ladies, Medieval England AU, Romance, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9614075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekprincess26/pseuds/geekprincess26
Summary: Lord Eddard Stark and King Robert Baratheon are prisoners of war. Lady Sansa Stark is waylaid by Sir Ramsay Bolton on her way to London to deliver their ransom. Lord Jon Targaryen does not care for Sir Ramsay's actions, but his father's bargain with the Boltons threatens his ability to keep Lady Sansa safe from harm.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 6 of Jon x Sansa Fanfiction’s 15 Days of Valentine’s challenge. More chapters to follow this one after the challenge concludes.

Lady Sansa Stark cocked her right arm behind her and prepared to let fly her last dagger.

 

An arrow whistled past her. Sansa heard the soft thud of its tip burying itself into one of the trees behind her. The arrow’s feathers had come within an inch of her left ear.

 

The arrow’s proximity made Sansa hesitate for a fatal moment. That was all it took for her to notice just how many men surrounded her. All of them were raising a bow or sword in her direction. A few of them held knives to the throats of those few of her father’s men who had remained with her after their party had been attacked by ruffians on their way south the prior day.

 

Sansa bit the inside of her lip to bleeding. Of all the rotten hands chance could have played her, this one surpassed even yesterday’s skirmish, which had nearly cost her her life. Oh, how the saints must have been laughing every time she had prayed to them for the past several weeks, she thought bitterly, and finally lowered her arm. One would have thought that even their anger at whatever sins she had committed to make them play wither her so had abated after more than three-quarters of her guard had fallen victim to the ambush. Not a one of those who had lived had escaped without wounds, and Sansa herself had suffered a sprained right ankle, although that hardly mattered now. That was more than could be said for the gold and silver they had piled so carefully into the carts before leaving Winterfell Castle almost six weeks before. The thieves who had attacked them had made off with all but a few bags.

 

“Lady, we have taken your men.” A young man with piercing blue eyes stepped forward. Each of the men around him stepped out of his way as he did so. Clearly this was their leader and therefore the man with whom Sansa would have to treat in order to keep the rest of her men alive.

 

“You have nowhere to go and no one to fight for you, so I advise you to yield,” continued the man. “Do you yield, then?”

 

Sansa’s voice had gone from fright, so she took a moment to regard the young man more closely. He and his men were fitted with fine leather jerkins, and the chain mail that gleamed from below several of their tunics indicated that they served a lord of some standing. That was a promising sign, for once she informed them that she was a lord’s daughter, they would be much likelier to treat her with some modicum of respect than the ruffians who had attacked her yesterday, and perhaps even to offer her and her men respite at their lord’s home while they recovered from their wounds.

 

“Who asks?” Sansa managed, and raised her chin as far as she dared. Her eyes darted to her left to assess the burly man walking one step behind his leader. He alone of the men around him bore a shield, and Sansa’s heart plummeted when she saw the red letter X outlined in white painted across its face. The Bolton family’s coat of arms was known and feared by everyone in the northern shires. Its current head, Lord Roose Bolton, was the most vicious and warlike vassal of Lord Rhaegar Targaryen, Earl of Lincoln, and rumor had it that his son, Sir Ramsay Bolton, was even more vicious. Rumors had circulated as far north as Winterfell Castle that Lord Roose and Sir Ramsay allowed, even encouraged, their men to raid the farms of neighboring lords for sport. Far worse, whispers ran rampant of both men’s love for torturing captives whose ransom had been paid before letting the poor men go. They were said to have flayed other captives, and even some of their own vassals, alive before feeding the remains to the ferocious hounds they kept in their kennels. If they did not guard such an important part of the borders of Lord Targaryen’s vast lands, many said, he would have dragged them before the king long ago, or even taken Sir Ramsay hostage in his own court to bring Lord Roose to heel.

 

Sansa gulped but kept her chin up, although she could not help but stare at the large knife the blue-eyed man brandished as he approached her. He twirled it carelessly in one hand like a child’s toy – almost, thought Sansa with mounting dismay, as the cooks did in Winterfell Castle’s kitchens. He looked as though he really could flay a man quite easily. It was all Sansa could do to stand her ground.

 

“Sir Ramsay Bolton, son of Lord Roose Bolton,” said the man, stopping within two feet of Sansa. She bit her lip to keep it from quivering, even as she tried to talk herself out of believing all of those silly rumors she’d heard. They could not possibly be true – not all of them, at least. And in any case, she was the daughter of Lord Eddard Stark, Earl of Richmond and one of the most powerful lords in England. Ruffians might not be particularly discriminating about their victims as long as the victims had something of value, but lords, especially lesser ones like the Boltons, were usually loath to provoke bloodshed by assaulting the family members of other lords.

 

“Has the lady been struck dumb?” The sneer on Sir Ramsay Bolton’s face had slid easily into his voice, and Sansa shuddered. Clearly, he had asked her a question which she had failed to hear. She gave her head a shake to clear it. The men around her laughed – except for her own men, of course, all of whom by the looks on their faces had heard just as many rumors about the Boltons as Sansa had.

 

Sir Ramsay Bolton twirled his knife again. The tip of its blade stopped not two feet from Sansa’s breast. She pushed her toes downward into the mud beneath her shoes to keep from shuddering. Having been sheltered heavily during her childhood, she was not nearly as adept at reading people, especially men, as were her father and mother, but she needed only one look at the leer of the man in front of her to know that he was the sort who would pounce on any sign of weakness from her.

 

“Who, I said,” the man repeated, stepping half a pace closer to Sansa, “roams so freely through the lands of Sir Ramsay Bolton and asks for his name?”

 

The tip of the knife had drawn to within a foot of Sansa’s cloak. She drew herself to as tall a height as she could manage.

 

“Lady Sansa Stark,” she said, narrowing her own blue eyes at his, “daughter of Lord Eddard Stark, Earl of Richmond.”

 

Sir Ramsay Bolton raised an eyebrow and took a step backward. Sansa breathed an internal sigh of relief.

 

“Daughter of Lord Eddard Stark?” he repeated, and turned in a semicircle to glance at each of his men.

 

“The same,” Sansa replied coolly when he was facing her again.

 

He lifted one corner of his mouth. He was sneering at her, Sansa realized, and she felt as though someone had rammed an icicle down her throat.

 

“The same Lord Eddard Stark who now sits hostage with _King_ Robert at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor?” The sneer sharpened in Sir Ramsay’s voice. “The same Lord Eddard Stark who languishes in prison with his son and heir until his people can ransom him, if they ever manage to pay their portion of King Robert’s ransom first? The same Lord Eddard Stark who will then no doubt let that dumb as an ox son go free in his stead so he can rot in prison while he lets his wife die of grief?” His tone was light, but when his men laughed, their laughter sounded like Sansa had always imagined demons must. She silently prayed to the Virgin for help as she spoke.

 

“The same, Sir Ramsay,” she said. “Furthermore, I would have you know that my people have raised our ransom for the king, my father, and my brother as well. I and my men were bringing it out of the north to London when we were set upon yesterday by a band of thieves. You may yet find it more than worth your while to apprehend them, for if you do our family this service, I am sure my lord father would gladly reward you with a share of whatever you can recover.” As she spoke, she asked the Virgin for forgiveness, for she knew how loath her father would be to part with so much as a copper in favor of the Boltons, even if they somehow found it worth their while to aid her in recovering his ransom.

 

Sir Ramsay Bolton’s grin widened. “We may indeed recover it,” he said, “although that will only happen if you are telling the truth, my lady.” His voice savored the last two words, and Sansa had to dig her toes into the mud again. Sir Ramsay shrugged innocently and gestured to his men.

 

“After all,” he said, “how do we know you are in fact Lady Sansa Stark? You could be any village wench playing at being a lady, for all that we know. No, my lady, I think you must return to my father’s house and stay until we can send word to your family for one of them to travel here and test your word. Whom would they send, I wonder?” He looked back over his shoulder at his men. Their laughter grew louder. Sansa shuddered while his back was turned.

 

“Your sister, Lady Arya?” Sir Ramsay’s tone was light and playful, but Sansa thought only of a cat’s playing with a mouse. “No, she is entirely too spirited and disobedient to follow orders. Your brother, perhaps? Brandon Stark, the cripple? No, it would take him twice as long to be carried here.” He shrugged. “Perhaps your lady mother would be willing to climb out of her sickbed and make the trip on your behalf?”

 

The men’s laughter began to break over the trees like so many vicious waves. Sansa dug her toes into the ground until they cramped.

 

“That will not be necessary, my lord,” she said quietly. “You may keep all the ransom you find, and let us pass.”

 

Even before Sir Ramsay emitted a laugh that would have sounded like a mother tut-tutting over her errant child had it come from a less frightening person, Sansa knew her efforts were futile. When he did laugh, the icicle that had been rammed down her throat earlier melted all the way to the base of her spine.

 

“Pass?” he said. “You wound me, my lady. Why ever would you refuse such an offer of hospitality, especially with so many wounded men about you?” He actually made the tut-tutting noise at which his laugh had just hinted, and Sansa had to bite her tongue to keep from squealing with fright. “Besides, there are many dangerous men about, as you have already told me. My men and I would be only too glad to guard you and your virtue – assuming you still have it, of course.”

 

Sansa’s teeth stopped mid-bite. She no longer had to keep her tongue from doing anything, for her tongue, like the rest of her body, had frozen solid.

 

“I imagine,” Sir Ramsay continued, “that I would be doing your future husband a favor to ensure your virtue is still intact. Your father might appreciate that.” He shrugged to his men’s uproarious laughter.

 

“My father – ” Sansa’s tongue unstuck from the roof of her mouth. She felt her face redden. Surely Sir Ramsay did not think Lord Eddard Stark would stand for this. Surely he would not risk it.

 

“ – is across the ocean and many mountains away,” answered Sir Ramsay lightly. “And I have heard that many ladies these days are willing to be persuaded out of their virtue by the right lord, Lady Sansa Stark.” His tongue hovered over the “S” sounds in her name, almost like Sansa thought the great serpent might have when he had spoken to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Her tongue froze again.

 

“Of course, if you are not a lady but a common wench, then you have no need of virtue,” said Sir Ramsay. He shrugged again. “I know more than one of my men who would be happy to win your favor in that case. We have been away from my father’s house for days, and they have no camp follower to attend to their needs.”

 

Sansa’s head felt light, and she let out a loud gasp in spite of herself. She had heard whispered conversations among Winterfell Castle’s serving girls about how lucky they were that Lord Eddard was so strict with his men, punishing them severely if they caused harm to even the lowest-born woman in the castle, whereas girls at other castles were often set upon by two or three men at once with no recourse. She had never thought she would come any closer to that horror than overhearing a conversation.

 

 _Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now,_ she whispered desperately. Only when Sir Ramsay Bolton began laughing in earnest did she realize she was saying the words out loud.

 

“Ah! A devout lady as well as a religious one – ” Sir Ramsay began, but he was suddenly interrupted by the pounding of many hooves. Perhaps ten men rode into view, all clad in black. The smirk slid off of Sir Ramsay’s face as the men rode into the clearing and dismounted. One of them, a dark-haired man perhaps Sir Ramsay’s age, strode up to within a few paces of Sansa and Sir Ramsay. He stared about him for several moments, his brown eyes narrowing as they settled on Sansa. Sansa bit her lip again and felt blood flowing from it.

 

“Sir Bolton,” the man finally said. “Well met. What have we here?”

 

Sir Ramsay’s eyes narrowed into slits. “A matter internal to Bolton affairs,” he finally replied. “We have but apprehended a few vagabonds about our borders. You and your father need not concern yourselves.” His eyes shifted slightly about the clearing, as if he were taking stock of his men. Sansa thought they outnumbered the other party by perhaps three to one.

 

This, however, did not seem to cause the other man alarm. “If I am not mistaken,” he said, “we have a lady here and some good knights, not vagabonds. That was not what I expected when I agreed to ride my father’s borders with you.”

 

“So she claims,” returned Sir Ramsay. “She says she is Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell Castle and was bringing her father’s ransom to London to be shipped to the Holy Roman Emperor, but for all I know she is but a pretty wench playing with a lady’s dresses and a few coins. In any case, she has trespassed on Bolton lands. My father and I are perfectly able to sort out the matter of her identity ourselves.”

 

The other man’s jaw tightened, and he stared at Sir Ramsay for several more moments. Sansa could not tell whether he wanted to burst into laughter at Sir Ramsay’s words or run Sir Ramsay through on the spot. She bit her tongue and felt blood there too. She thought she saw him glance sidelong at her for a moment, but if he had, he had turned away quickly.

 

“If she is indeed Lady Sansa Stark,” he said coldly, “it is a matter of my concern, for my father is in negotiations with hers.”

 

Sir Ramsay looked dumbfounded for perhaps two seconds before the smirk overtook his face again.

 

“Your father? Negotiating with Lord Eddard Stark? For your hand for his daughter?” Sir Ramsay sneered again, but his expression slackened when a tall, burly man with the most enormous red beard Sansa had ever seen planted himself next to the strange man.

 

“If Lord Jon Targaryen tells you something, you’d best believe it,” he bellowed. Sansa took an involuntary step backward. Lord Jon Targaryen was the second son of Lord Rhaegar Targaryen, and indeed such a lord as Sansa’s father may have sought for her had his family not had bad blood with the Targaryens. That, however, concerned Sansa far less at the moment than why the younger Lord Targaryen had lied about her to Sir Ramsay’s face, especially when he had no reason to do anything other than leave her with Sir Ramsay and be on his way. Unless, perhaps, she thought, he wanted her for himself and his own men. She took another step backward, and then another as she realized both Sir Ramsay and Lord Targaryen were staring at her.

 

Finally, Lord Targaryen sprang into action. He strode past Sir Ramsay and took Sansa by the elbow, although his touch was less ungentle than decisive.

 

“If she is indeed my intended,” he said, turning to Sir Ramsay, “she will stay with me, and I shall do as I please. If she is not, she shall face my father’s justice.” He nodded sharply at the red-bearded man. “Lord Tormund, see to it that Lady Sansa’s men are attended to. We will camp next to the stream yonder.” He inclined his head ever so slightly at a point further into the forest, away from the road. Lord Tormund nodded, but only when Sir Ramsay had put away the knife and given his men the order to release Sansa’s men did he sheath his own sword. He and Sir Ramsay’s guard, whom Sansa had forgotten about up until now, both began barking orders to their men.

 

Without another word, Lord Targaryen picked Sansa up in his arms. She immediately began striking him about the shoulders, but he only gripped her more tightly.

 

“Quiet, girl!” he hissed. “Don’t attract more of their attention. Just do as I say.”

 

Sansa opened her mouth to scream, but Lord Targaryen clapped a hand over it. The breath she had been taking was stifled in her throat, and she gasped for another, to no avail.

 

 _Pray for us sinners now, and in the hour of our death,_ her mind gasped before everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I did not intend to take such a lengthy hiatus from this story! However, real life has its way of thwarting one's best intentions, which it did in this case. Also, I wanted to put forth every effort to craft a story that reflected the history and spirit of England in the mid-1190s as much as possible, and I got caught up in research and then in a ball of worry and angst about how extensive and effective my research was. I eventually came out on the other side, however, and this chapter is the result of my efforts. I hope it does not disappoint my readers.
> 
> 2\. Fair warning: I did change a few of the characters' family relationships here from what they are on the show, because I felt their personalities better suited those changes. For instance, Joffrey is King Robert's younger brother, not his supposed son. Please don't hate me too much (ducks flying tomatoes) - I promise I have my reasons!
> 
> 3\. This chapter is dedicated to qinaliel as a belated birthday gift and a thank-you for her patience and feedback.

Lord Jon Targaryen felt the woman in his arms go slack and cursed.

 

Mother of God, could his luck get any worse?

 

He’d begun the day by having a shouting match with his father, Lord Rhaegar Targaryen.  Granted, the two men were often at odds, especially since Lord Aegon Targaryen, Rhaegar’s elder son and heir, had snuck off to join the Crusaders following King Robert to Jerusalem.  Jon grimaced as he remembered the morning he’d descended the steps to Dragonstone’s massive courtyard, where the captains of the contingent Rhaegar had mustered to King Robert’s aid had been scheduled to gather and follow Jon to the coast to join the king, only to find that his cocky half-brother had led them out himself at dawn.

 

He’d left Father a flowery letter expressing both his deepest apologies for his disobedience and his even deeper assurance that God had spoken to him in a dream and told him to go to Jerusalem and win glory for his family, his country, and all Christendom, and who was he to contradict God?

 

Jon had rolled his eyes when he’d reached that part of the letter; for Aegon had never expressed any true interest in religion.  He rarely attended the Masses held seven times a day in Dragonstone’s tiny chapel, rushed through his Hail Marys more quickly than even the stable boys, and could name even fewer of the saints than Jon himself could.  No, if Aegon sought any glory on this errand, it was hardly God’s.  That, however, did not register with his father, who barely finished his fool son’s letter before turning white as a ghost and slumping against the wall of Aegon’s solar, where the servants had discovered the missive.  Rhaegar read it once before turning to strike Jon a blow to the jaw that nearly felled his unsuspecting son.

 

“You!” he cried, and whirled to jab a finger at Jon, nearly striking him again in the process.  “You,” he repeated, rasping and struggling to regain the breath he had spent on his initial outburst were to go – you – prove the blood of the dragon to the infidels – and you let my heir escape in your place instead!  You!”

 

He doubled over and collapsed in a white-faced heap at Jon’s feet.  Jon, still clutching his jaw, shouted at the nearest servant to fetch the steward and the physician.

 

So it was Jon who had found himself barking out orders to Dragonstone’s marshal to send out as many riders as the castle could spare as quickly as possible to catch up with and retrieve his wayward half-brother.  It was Jon who had dictated a letter to the king to beg him to send Aegon back in case the riders should fail, and Jon who had borne the king’s reply to Lord Rhaegar when the riders did fail and the king refused to turn away such a proud and willing young warrior.  Jon had feared his father, who had shut himself in his chambers and barely eaten ever since Aegon had left, would break, just as Rhaenys, Rhaegar’s own daughter, had done so long ago, but Lord Rhaegar had let out an anguished howl and shouted at Jon to leave him at once.  Jon had taken the shouting as a good sign and his father’s ordering him to the usual distance between them as an even better one.  He’d even spared a few minutes to visit Father Samwell Tarly – Father Sam, as everyone in the castle called him – in the chapel and order an extra Mass to be said each for his father and brother.  Father Samwell had nodded, asked as he always did whether Jon would not stay to offer a prayer or two himself, and nodded in that disappointed fashion of his that always produced a pang of guilt in Jon’s guts when Jon had refused.  He had, however, insisted on soaking a cloth for Jon to hold to his jaw to keep it from swelling too badly before he bustled off to do his lord’s bidding.

 

“I shall say a mass for you and your father as well, Lord Jon, if you should consent,” he had said, turning on his heel after a moment.  Jon had stared at him, mildly surprised, until Father Sam flushed and added quietly, “It is never a painless thing to see a kinsman off to a war, even to a holy war, and even when the kinsman has caused one his own pain.”

 

Jon had granted him permission then with a sharp nod and at least as sharp a pang of annoyance.  Even Jon’s brief acquaintance with the other man had told him that Father Sam spoke little but shrewdly, observed much, could take a man’s measure as well as Jon could swing a sword.  This time, though, Jon knew the man spoke from experience, for his own father and brother had left for the Crusades even before Aegon had.  Furthermore, Sam’s father, Lord Randyll Tarly, had treated him cruelly as a child and made no secret of his preference for his second son, the Lord Dickon Tarly, who had accompanied him to the war.  Jon had wondered for a moment how Sam could possibly miss a man whose ill-treatment had made his own father’s and brother’s neglect of him since his mother’s death look like gentle coddling in comparison.  But if one in a hundred priests could actually put the preaching of Christian charity to practice, it would be Father Sam, who had naught but kind greetings for everyone, even Rhaegar, who had met Father Sam but twice and had made it abundantly clear both times that he allowed a priest and chapel in his castle against his own wishes only to honor the memory of his late wives and to avoid constant protests from the servants.

 

Lord Rhaegar eventually left his chambers, but his melancholy moods, which always made him desire the harp and his private scrolls to the utter disregard of administering a castle, came more often and lasted longer after that; and he avoided Jon even more than he had been wont to do before Aegon’s departure.  Rhaenys, Jon’s half-sister, reacted even more poorly.  She did not shout, for she had not spoken a single word since the age of twelve years, but she wept as Jon had never seen her weep, and he himself had nearly fallen to tears in his attempts to persuade her to eat and drink.  For three days she refused all but small ale, and Jon, desperate, had ordered more masses from Father Sam on her behalf.  His father and half-brother had always been content enough to leave him to his own devices; but Rhaenys had always had smiles and even giggles to spare for him.  When Aegon or one of the other lords’ sons had beaten him at swords or archery, Jon went to Rhaenys’s chambers as often as not to assuage their jeers with the balm of her humming and sewing.  When the rain pelted the training yards too hard for a tilt, Jon would often as not occupy the time by reading Rhaenys her favorite stories.  He had come to know most of them by heart, especially the parts that made her laugh and smile, and he had developed a habit over the years of deepening his voice as he read the villains’ speeches and swinging his arms in exaggerated reenactments of the duels they always lost so that he could coax a giggle from her even during the most frightening parts of the stories.

 

But Rhaenys stopped giving smiles or giggles to anyone the day Aegon left.  She did begin eating again, to Jon’s immense relief, and he had been able to focus on questions from the steward and the chamberlain about the business matters that had accumulated unheeded in the days since Aegon’s departure.

 

Jon had always paid more attention than Aegon when they were younger to their father’s duties – how he discussed the castle’s stores with the steward, how he heard petitions and mediated between feuding knights, how he ordered repairs and mustered men for King Steffon and then King Robert.  After Aegon left, however, Rhaegar’s reluctance to leave his chambers thrust Jon into filling much of his father’s role, and it was then that he learned how woefully unprepared he still was for it.  He tried to learn as quickly as he could.  He spent weeks plying the servants with questions, reading letters over twice or thrice to ensure he understood them, poring over ledgers far into the night, asking the steward to repeat himself yet again so he could task the man with ordering the proper supplies for the castle stores, and spending hour after hour signing and scribbling with a quill till his fingers screamed to hold a sword.  He granted Wendel, who farmed the hide nearest the forest to the south of Dragonstone, a sennight’s extra time to produce the lord’s portion of his crops due to his wife’s just having borne their seventh child.  He listened to a claim from Torrhen the blacksmith and his wife, who alleged that they had been accosted and threatened by some of Lord Roose Bolton’s men on their way back to Dragonstone Castle from the Vale, where they had been visiting Torrhen’s ill sister, and sent a letter to Lord Roose asking him to question his men and relay their answer to Jon at speed.  He refused yet another request from the brothers of Saint Augustine to rebuild nearby Wymondham Abbey*, which had been destroyed by fire some dozen years ago, just as his father would have done.  That proved to be the easiest task he undertook in his father’s name, for Rhaegar would have dragged himself out of his chambers to gut Jon himself if Jon had done aught differently.

 

Eventually, Rhaegar recovered enough to resume many of his duties.  He never spoke of the events surrounding Aegon’s departure – indeed, to Jon he spoke even less than usual.  Jon, all too accustomed to his father’s lack of attention, spoke equally little, if not less, and spent as much of his newly freed time as he could with Rhaenys.  He was still left with the tasks his father, who had taken to retiring well before the day’s final supper**, left undone, but even so, a few months into Rhaegar’s near-recovery, Rhaenys wept only a little and only at night, and Jon began to catch her smiling again in the afternoons.

 

Not quite a year after Aegon’s departure, however, a courier galloped up the road winding one of the splendid cliffs that surrounded Dragonstone on three sides as though Satan’s hounds were nipping at his heels.  They may as well have done, thought Jon, for the rider bore a scroll, signed and sealed by the king himself, informing the Lord of Dragonstone that his heir had perished in battle at Acre. 

 

Rhaegar’s face whitened and aged twenty years in the pace of ten seconds, and he collapsed to his knees.  He dropped the letter, which Jon retrieved before it brushed the courtyard stones and read hastily.  He might have followed his father’s lead except that his body refused to move, even breathe, for he knew not how long.  He had barely managed to elbow his way through the group of servants huddled around the stricken lord and clutch him in his arms before the physician strode into their midst, huffing and puffing.  Jon helped the man carry Rhaegar to his chambers, and a gaggle of servants followed them.  He noticed his father’s lips moving, but could not hear what was coming from them until he and the other men bent to deposit their lord onto his bed.

 

 _The first head is gone._ Jon’s ear was perhaps a foot from his father’s lips, but the words were spoken so quietly that he had to use his eyes to discern the them fully.  _The vengeance.  Vengeance is mine.  Mine._

 

The whispers trailed off into nothing.  Jon drew back and glanced sharply at the servants and physician, none of whom seemed to have heard anything his father had said.  At any rate, they all turned quickly enough to the physician, who assured them that the Lord Rhaegar was alive but must be examined.  Everyone burst into questions, but Jon found his voice long enough to order them out and command the chamberlain to keep the servant from speaking of Aegon to Rhaenys and then set everyone else about their duties so they would give the poor physician time to examine his lord and Jon time to think about what should be done next.  He could think of nothing, though – nothing except Aegon’s endless pranks, and his violet eyes that twinkled with merry mischief when they played as boys together and then jealous mischief when they got older and Aegon understood just how thoroughly his half-brother outshone him in martial pursuits, and the lilting voice he used to charm countless maidservants and other ladies about the castle, and the hours he spent in the tiltyard trying in vain to outdo Jon at whatever war-sport they were practicing that day, and the sneer in his smile the day before he left Dragonstone, when Jon wished him good fortune and reminded him to pay Rhaegar and Rhaenys some modicum of attention if he could spare any from the ladies.

 

“Learning to rule a castle may better the rack, if not the women, if you try it a time or two, Aegon,” he had said.  It had been half a jest, but the crooked smile Aegon had offered him in return had lacked amusement.

 

“Heirs were made for glory, not dusty scrolls,” he had replied.  “I am wasted on tedious ramblings when the triumph of Jerusalem begs instead for my sword, little brother.”

 

He had turned on his heel and strode off, but not before Jon saw the frustration warring to burst through his brother’s jaunty mask.  That was what had blunted the edge of Jon’s anger enough to keep his wits intact through the tumult of the next day and the months that had followed it, and it was also what bore Jon to the chapel he so rarely visited to request a hundred masses for Aegon’s soul from Father Sam at his own expense.  Not even Rhaegar’s love for his heir would make him request so much as a hymn from the priest to that effect, and Jon well knew it.

 

Then he had turned his reluctant feet to the stairs that led to his sister’s chambers.

 

Rhaenys had reacted as poorly as Jon had feared.  Her once dulcet voice, which had not formed a word in years, uttered loud, rasping wails nearly all night, and nothing, no pleading, no soothing whispers, no countless repetitions of her name, could draw her out of the corner into which she had curled herself like a helpless babe.  Feeling just as helpless himself, Jon withdrew to his solar and ordered the servants to direct all further matters of business to him for the foreseeable future. 

 

Rhaegar remained in his chambers for the better part of a month, and when he finally did emerge, he looked nearly as old as he had when he had first received the news of Aegon’s death.  Streaks of his pale gold hair had gone white or nearly so, and his face had half a dozen new lines.  He spoke even less to Jon than he had in the months following Aegon’s departure for the Crusades, and he resumed even fewer of his duties.  That meant that Jon stayed up at his desk halfway until dawn some nights answering letters, reviewing ledgers, and calculating how much the rents of every farmer and tradesman in Sussex would have to be increased that year to pay for Lord Rhaegar’s portion of King Robert’s ransom.  The last duty proved nearly as onerous as the rest combined, for in the second winter following Aegon’s death, the Duke of Austria had captured the king and several of his companions on their way back from the Holy Land, and early the following year, he had turned them over to the Holy Roman Emperor, who had promptly demanded 150,000 marks for the king’s release and various lesser sums for the freedom of each of his lords.  These included Jon Arryn, Earl of Lincoln; Eddard Stark, Earl of Richmond; and Robb Stark, Lord Stark’s eldest son and heir. 

 

Jon had taken a moment or two to pity the good people of Lincoln and Richmond, who had to raise their own lords’ ransoms in addition to their portions of the king’s.  However, his pity for the vassals of other lords was quickly dwarfed by the sheer size of the quarter tax the king’s collectors expected from the Earl of Norfolk.  One-fourth of the income of every landowner, from the tenant of a single hide to Rhaegar Targaryen himself, must be collected by the earl and paid over to the Crown’s treasury by the time of the Yuletide festival in the year of the king’s capture.  Rumor had it that Crown Prince Joffrey, King Robert’s only living brother, planned to tip a fair portion of it into his own coffers.  Jon, who paid little attention to most rumors coming out of London, put more stock in this one than usual, for the king had incensed his brother by choosing as his heir the Prince Renly, son of his dead brother the Prince Stannis, in Prince Joffrey’s place before departing on his crusade.  No sooner had his ships left the shores of England than Prince Joffrey had retaliated by making all manner of trouble.  He had urged the king’s privy council almost daily to reverse the heirship decision in his own favor; and when its members had continued to refuse him, he had spurned the bride his brother had chosen for him and taken as his wife Lady Margaery Tyrell, daughter of the powerful Earl of Gloucester. 

 

But, Prince Joffrey or no Prince Joffrey, the Crown expected its full quarter tax; and Jon had spent several nights in his solar till dawn scribbling in his ledgers to produce a solution that would shield Norfolk’s poorest tenants from starvation, for the prior year’s harvest had not been great.  On one such night, the Lord Rhaegar had entered the solar quite unexpectedly and inquired after Jon’s efforts.  Jon had explained his plan to lessen the tax on the tenants who needed their entire income simply to survive the oncoming winter in favor of increasing the percentage of collection from the wealthier lords, who could spare it.  Rhaegar had resisted the suggestion for some days, but eventually his exhaustion, a near-constant presence since Aegon’s death, had gotten the better of him following a visit from Lord Roose Bolton and his son, Sir Ramsay Bolton.  The day after they had left Dragonstone Castle, Rhaegar had agreed to a compromise that would require more than a quarter’s income tax of every owner of over a hundred hides save for the Boltons and two or three others.  On that point he had refused to waver, insisting that these lords kept the borders of Norfolk and should be exempted from the extra tax for their trouble.  He had even reduced the Boltons’ tax to one-fifth instead of one-fourth; for, he said, they must watch the border at the edge of the Lincoln Forest, which was the most dangerous of all because of the poachers and outlaws who haunted the woodlands.  By this time, however, Jon had begun to suspect that the Boltons were more fit to be banished to the forest to keep the outlaws company than to guard the realm from them.  Since Aegon’s departure for the Holy Land, he had nearly a dozen complaints from farmers and merchants alike about the Boltons and their ill-treatment of travelers crossing their borders.  All of them had stories similar to that of Wendel and his wife, and some were worse.  Jon heard tales of beatings and threats from them and worse from a couple of maidservants he had chanced to hear gossiping in the corridors.  One of them had recently arrived at Dragonstone Castle bruised and scratched and begging the chamberlain to accept her as a cook or a chambermaid or anything else he might please, for she had chanced upon rogues near the border of Lincoln Forest, and they had beaten her so badly that she had barely escaped with her life.  With a disinterested wave of his hand, Rhaegar had allowed the man to grant her request.  When Jon had chanced upon her in the hall a few weeks later, however, she had been admitting to her fellow servant that she had in fact been a chambermaid at Dreadfort Castle and had been beaten and raped not by rogues, but by Sir Ramsay Bolton himself.  The other maid had whispered that two of the newest kitchen maids had told her similar stories.

 

Jon might have dismissed one or two such accounts as but rumors, but by this time he had heard twice the number of complaints that would have made King Robert himself summon a lord to his court for reckoning.  When he had pointed this out to his father, Rhaegar’s arm had twitched, and Jon had flinched, thinking his father would strike him again.  Rhaegar had done no such thing, but he had set his mouth into a grim line and snapped at Jon to mind his tongue.

 

“I will hear no more,” he had hissed.  “They guard our borders, and they shall be compensated accordingly.”

 

A tremor had taken the corner of his mouth for such a fleeting moment that Jon questioned whether he had truly seen it before turning on his heel and stalking out of his father’s solar without wishing him a good night.

 

The next day had brought another complaint about Sir Ramsay Bolton from yet another farmer.  Rhaegar had refused to listen to the man when Jon had asked him to repeat his complaint in a private audience, and after he had heard the remainder of the day’s petitions, Jon had stalked to his chambers, and slammed the door behind him.  The shudder of his startled valet and the thought of a bruised toe were the only things that kept him from giving his stool a hearty kick into his desk.

 

Not a week later, he had sent a messenger to Dreadfort Castle warning Lord Roose and Sir Ramsay of reports he had heard of recent attacks by rogues in the area.  He had not mentioned that Sir Ramsay himself was one of the rogues in question, but hoped that it would be enough to warn both father and son that Jon was aware of their malfeasances.  The following week, however, had brought yet another report against Sir Ramsay Bolton, as well as an account by two smiths on their way to London whose company had been attacked and scattered by some dozen or more rogues who bore no coat of arms, Bolton or otherwise.  That had been enough of a pretext for Jon to send a message summoning Sir Ramsay meet him and some dozen of his men to take a turn about the borders of the Lincoln Forest to search for the outlaws in question.

 

So it was that Jon arrived at the determined meeting place to find Sir Ramsay and thrice the number of men he had claimed he would bring with him already there, accosting a young woman with disheveled red braids and some half-dozen men who looked much the worse for wear but no less willing to defend her to the death.  Sir Ramsay was smiling as he spoke to her, but the icy leer in that smile made Jon’s blood run cold and erased any doubts he might have had about the stories of travelers and maids alike.  He wanted to grab the man by his surcoat and haul him back to Dragonstone Castle to answer the charges against him, but his men thrice outnumbered Jon’s, and the Boltons were especial friends of Prince Joffrey’s, and Lord Rhaegar would have refused to hear the matter even if Jon could have managed to spirit Sir Ramsay back to Dragonstone Castle without any trouble.

 

But he refused to let the other man molest yet another innocent, and he had no reason to doubt that this innocent was indeed the daughter of Lord Eddard Stark, the king’s closest friend and perhaps the most powerful earl in all of England.  Jon cursed his father silently and strode up to Sir Ramsay Bolton with his hand resting next to the pommel of his sword.

 

 _Unhand her and to the devil with you,_ he wanted to shout, or, _Away from her lest you dare the wrath of the king, or else mine!_   But he could say neither, and his mind scrambled madly for the words that would spirit Lady Sansa and her retinue away from the situation as quickly as possible.

 

“If she is indeed Lady Sansa Stark,” he found himself saying, “it is a matter of my concern, for my father is in negotiations with hers.”

 

His eyes widened when he realized what he had said, and he cursed his tongue for acting on his memory of the lady’s recent betrothal; but he had spoken the words, and Sir Ramsay was momentarily dumbfounded, and Jon took advantage of the latter’s discomfort to get Lady Sansa and her men away from the Boltons as quickly as he could.

 

Jon cursed again as he felt Lady Sansa go limp in his arms.  At least she would not cry out now and draw Sir Ramsay’s attention back to her, he thought as he trudged up the hill toward the stream he had pointed out to his men.  He heard a suckling noise from the ground and sighed, pulling his steel-shod foot out of the mud formed by the recent spring rains.  He tightened his grip on the Lady Sansa, felt her face pressing against his surcoat, and picked his way along the stream as carefully as he could.

 

He had just sludged through the worst bit when he heard his name being shouted.  Startled, he raised his head to see Pypar, one of his knights, flying over the crest of the hill where the men were pitching the tents. 

 

“My lord!” shouted Pypar, but he got no further, for just then a mighty lurch from the woman in Jon’s arms pulled his shoulders nearly out of their joints.  He managed to hold onto her but got a yelp in his ear for his trouble.

 

“Unhand me!  Out!”  The girl struck him full in the chest, and Jon winced as the impact of her elbow struck the links of his chain mail just below his left shoulder.  His leather jerkin absorbed much of the blow, but it would still bruise come the morrow.

 

She struck him again, and this time Jon stumbled forward, dropped her to the ground, and very nearly fell on top of her.  At the last moment, he flung himself far enough forward to avoid her.  Scarcely had he rolled faceup with a grunt than the girl scrambled to her feet and made to bolt back toward the horses.  Jon snagged her wrist, and she cried out in pain as her body pulled taut against his grip.  He pushed himself up on the strength of his right leg and seized her shoulder with his other hand, this time more gently.  Not gently enough, however, for the girl’s reached across her body as if to grasp a sword or dagger, and, finding none there, flailed outward to strike a blow at his jaw.  He dodged it just in time and turned to see her open her mouth, clearly intending to scream again.  Jon covered it and gripped her shoulder more tightly.

 

“Hush, lady!” he snapped.  “Are you so eager to meet Sir Ramsay Bolton and his lot of rogues again?”

 

The girl tensed, and Jon felt her exhale against his hand.  Both her breath and her jaw trembled, but she was standing erect, and Jon decided she was in no danger of swooning again.  He felt his fingers cramp and loosened his grip on her shoulder, but she only glared and tried to wriggle out of his grip.   Jon glared back.

 

“Enough,” he snapped, clamping his aching fingers down tightly again.  “If you run, Sir Bolton will certainly find you.  He owns hounds that can track down a man on several hours’ start, and he lives not even that far away.  Were he to set them upon you, they would have you before the night was over, and he is not a man to be trusted or toyed with lightly.”  He bent slightly to level his eyes with hers.  They were still glaring at him, but the ferocity was fading quickly.  “If you would rather stay with your men, they are with mine, just up the hill.  Come and see them.”

 

The girl’s eyes lost all their blue glare to widen in fear, and Jon, realizing how his words must have sounded, shook his head.

 

“My men are only tending to them, lady,” he said.  “I mean them no harm – or you.”  He turned back toward her and felt the protest of his body where she had hit him.  Aye, that would bruise.  He narrowed his eyes at her.

 

“If I take my hand down, will you cease screaming?” he asked.  Her jaw set more firmly beneath his hand, but after a moment she nodded, and after another, he dropped his hand.  He held out his arm, but she did not take it.

 

“My men?” she said at once, her tone heavy with accusation.

 

“This way,” he replied and turned toward the tent.  Pypar, however, was right in front of him.

 

“My lord – my Lady Stark,” he said, and bowed in the girl’s direction.  “One of your men has swooned in the tent and will not awake.  My lord – ” he turned back to Jon – “you may wish to take him to the nearest holdfast rather than remaining in the tent for the night.  Grenn fears his condition may be grave.”

 

Jon sighed.  None of the lady’s men had appeared to be badly wounded when he had first laid eyes on them, but he had spared them barely a glance in his haste to get away from the Boltons’ men.  He had dearly hoped they could manage the night in the tent, for the nearest holdfast was Dreadfort Castle, and the closest abbey beyond that was at least two hours farther, which would keep them riding well past dark and far too near to Lincoln Forest.  Any of his knights could bandage a simple wound, and Grenn, the son of Dragonstone’s physician, could treat worse in a tight corner; but if the man was beyond Grenn’s help, their only recourse was to take him to the Dreadfort and the Boltons’ physician. 

 

“Sir Jory?”  Jon turned to see the lady addressing Grenn.  “Sir Cassel, that is?” she added, seeing the confused look on both men’s faces, and Grenn nodded.

 

“Your men do call him that, my lady,” he said, and she nodded.  She pressed her lips together so tightly that they began to whiten, but she still ignored Jon’s proffered arm as they both swept up the hill after Grenn.  Once they reached the top, Jon groaned.

 

A man of perhaps thirty years lay upon a hastily erected pallet just beside the tent.  His face was white as river’s foam and contorted with pain.  Grenn was bent over him examining his leg, which had already been stripped of its armor to reveal a bandage soaked in blood covering the stricken man’s lower thigh.  When Jon drew closer, he saw thin red streaks emanating from the wound down the man’s leg and grimaced.  Those streaks meant an infection of the blood, which would kill the man unless treated at once.

 

The lady must have known this as well, although Jon knew not how, for she gave a sharp gasp and clapped her hand over her mouth.  He stepped to her side, worrying she would swoon again; but after a moment, she let down her hand, drew her shoulders back, and turned to face him.

 

“Do you have a physician, sir?” she asked him.  “I – I can pay whatever he requires.”  Her jaw quivered again, and she pressed her lips together tightly before she resumed speaking.  “ ‘Tis true that much of my father’s ransom was stolen from us, but my men and I have enough left over on our persons.”  Her mouth twitched, as though she would take the words back if she could.  “We shall not inconvenience you for long.  I ask only that your physician see my men to health and let us pass back to the Kingsroad, and we shall be of no further trouble to you.”

 

Jon shook his head.  The girl had clearly never traveled at any great distance before if she thought that physicians were so easily had or that any lord she ran across would negotiate on honorable terms so easily.  “I have no physician here,” he replied.  “The nearest is at Dreadfort Castle – the Boltons’ home.”

 

But he had not given the girl enough credit, for she blanched at the mention of Dreadfort without even hearing the Bolton name.

 

“The very nearest?” she asked, looking nearly as terrified as she had when Jon had first seen her being accosted by Sir Ramsay.  “You are certain?”  Her voice lowered and took on a distinctly accusatory tone.  “You had claimed to want me away from him.”

 

Jon sighed again.  Did the lady think he looked happy about this turn of events, especially since he had been the one to snatch her out of Bolton’s claws in the first place?

 

“I spoke the truth, my lady,” he replied abruptly.  “I like it not, but the Dreadfort’s physician is nearer than any other, and your man must have one at haste.  Lord Bolton is unpleasant and ruthless; but my father is his liege, and he will remember it.”

 

He wished he could believe his own words entirely; but at any rate the lady must believe them, or Christ and Saint George along knew how loudly she would start shrieking.

 

“And I shall have my men guard your and your ladies’ rooms,” he added.  The girl grimaced and drew back a hand’s breadth.

 

“My own men shall watch over me, with my thanks, my lord,” she replied.  “Yours need not take the – the trouble; and my men do not know them.”

 

Her voice caught upon the last phrase, and Jon heard it shake.  Her hand drifted toward her side again as if to clutch for a weapon she did not have.  She flinched and pulled it back, and when she blinked, the westering sun shone off her eyes with suspicious brightness.

 

Jon sighed again.  Now he had managed to frighten the girl, as well as to anger both her and Sir Ramsay Bolton, in whose castle he must now spend the night.  He opened his mouth but was still trying to find something to say when he heard an unfamiliar voice call out, “Lady Sansa!”, and saw a fair-haired young knight, blood splattering his Stark surcoat, stride up and bow to the woman.

 

“Sir Wendel,” she sighed, relief overtaking her features, and turned to curtsy briefly toward Jon.

 

“My lord,” she said, and swept off almost at a run to join the other knight.  Jon turned to watch her hurry to the wounded man’s side and found Grenn at his own.

 

“Any others wounded?” he asked.  Grenn nodded, his face grim.

 

“Aye,” he said.  “Five others.  Three with scratches.  Two worse.”  He inclined his head toward Jon’s tent.  “Neither as bad as him, but they’d best get to a physician sooner than later.”  He reached up to swat a fly off his forehead.  “Shall we go to the Dreadfort, my lord?”

 

His voice rose, and for a moment Jon heard the red-haired girl’s last words to him – low, but measured and proper and not at all _m’lord_ , as a peasant or lowborn impostor would have said.  He let out a loud sigh through his clenched teeth.

 

Sir Ramsay Bolton may have claimed to doubt her words, but Jon suspected the man knew as well as he did that the girl was indeed Lady Sansa Stark, daughter of Lord Eddard – and the woman he had proclaimed in the hearing of Sir Ramsay and all their men to be his future wife.

 

Jon cursed again, this time audibly.

 

“Aye,” he snapped, and Grenn’s eyebrows rose.  “As quickly as you can, Grenn.  Keep an especial eye on that wounded man.”  He turned to Sir Tormund Giantsbane, who had just stalked over to join his lord.  “Tormund, take Oliver and find the Lady Sansa a horse.  I want you within a horse’s breath of her at all times.”  His jaw tightened, and he turned toward where Sir Ramsay and his men were setting up camp.  “Do not let her out of your sight.”

 

*Wymondham Abbey was a Benedictine monastery founded in 1107 in Wymondham, Norwich, about 10 miles southwest of Norwich.  You can find out more about it [here](https://www.britainexpress.com/counties/norfolk/abbeys/wymondham.htm).

 

**The last meal served in a medieval castle for the day was often not dinner, but a late evening meal termed “supper.”  For more information, see Daily Life in Medieval Times, by Frances and Joseph Gies (Barnes & Noble Edition, ISBN #0-7607-5913-8).

 


End file.
